Since 2009, Stone Creek Club & Spa has established itself as a pillar of the Covington Community. The club has received recognition for its outstanding customer service and philanthropic efforts. To date, the club has received awards in a wide range of categories including “Best Club”, “Best Day Spa”, “Best Tennis Courts”, “Best Personal Trainer”, and “Business of the Year”.
Larry Conner is the general manager of Stone Creek Club & Spa. He has over 30 years of experience in the fitness and hospitality industry. Conner brought in the InBody to try it out with the club’s weight loss challenge. After an enthusiastic response, he bought the device and implemented InBody testing into various club programs. After delivering incredible results for his club members, Conner took his InBody out into the community to help people learn more about their body compositions.
Developing an Everyday Getaway
In 2009, Stone Creek Club & Spa faced great challenges. The Great Recession was in full swing, and they were trying to break into a market that had two established health clubs that catered to 40% of the local population.
Conner and the leadership team had to commit to a clear vision that would help their club stand out. The established health clubs focused on large group events like summer camps, swim teams, and daytime birthday parties. Stone Creek differentiated itself by catering to the individual. That meant sacrificing lucrative secondary sources of revenue, such as summer camps and parties because those would detract from the individual experience.
Another point of differentiation was memberships and contracts. Stone Creek capped memberships – and potentially miss out on income – to create a more welcoming club experience. They also offered flexible month-to-month payment plans because they didn’t want to trap people in long contracts. It was all part of their vision to create an “everyday getaway” for their members through individual attention and service.
When you are trying to establish a unique business model in a competitive market during tough economic times, the chance for failure is high. But after ten years it’s clear that their vision is working. Today, Stone Creek has a loyal active membership base, boasts annual revenues that exceed $7.4 million, and is beloved by the Covington Community. But that’s only where this story begins.
The ongoing challenge you have as a health club is that once you build something out, you have to keep updating it. You can’t sit with the same product you had years ago. You have to keep your facility fresh, innovative, and make sure you have the latest and greatest equipment.
It was this pursuit to keep Stone Creek on the forefront and up-to-date that led Conner to InBody.
Starting Off On the Right Foot
After seeing the InBody device at a networking event, Conner felt that the body composition analyzer would be a valuable addition to their weight loss contests by providing accurate measurements of body fat percentage. That hunch turned out to be right.
It was such a big hit in our weight loss contest that I bought it immediately. Within 3 months we were able to pay for that unit from simply charging per test.
The pay-per-test program was a successful new revenue stream. A member would pay a fee, take an InBody test, and then receive a comprehensive review of the InBody Result Sheet from a trainer. The InBody Result Sheet allowed members to only see their body fat percentage, but they received other key metrics like muscle distribution, metabolic rate, and visceral fat. The success of the program encouraged Conner to incorporate testing into a variety of programs, from weight loss competitions to tennis lessons, because he knew that every person at the club had something to gain from taking an InBody Test. Today, every new member gets an InBody Test with a consultation to help them start off on the right foot. The consultation has also proven to be a great way to introduce members to different services the club offers.
Sample Result Sheet Provided by InBody USA
In our business, we need to be able to respond to members’ needs quickly and the InBody provides that. The average user does not know much about themselves…by giving access to the InBody to more people it’s become a common part of our business, and the results have just helped change people’s lives.
Taking Programs to the Next Level
Incorporating InBody into different areas of the club has helped delivered results for both members and the program. InBody helps Stone Creek’s personal training clients visualize progress and find areas of improvement that they may have missed by using a mirror or a weight scale.
You can tell people the importance of staying balanced and show them techniques, but when you show them a test result that shows it, that helps the client to focus on following the exercise plan.
Conner has a unique story that highlights both the accuracy and precision of the InBody device. One of Stone Creek’s trainers had a client that suffered from shoulder pain. The InBody Test revealed that one side of her body was stronger than the other, resulting in muscle imbalance and pain. After learning more about her day-to-day activities, the trainer and the client figured out that the way she walked her dogs was the cause of her imbalance. She had three large dogs she always walked with the same arm. The yanking and pulling caused her to develop shoulder imbalance and pain. The trainer made adjustments to her personal training, and she adjusted her dog walking, and together they tracked the progress on the InBody Result Sheet. Today the client is in balance and pain-free.
It’s unique insights like this that have helped Stone Creek enhance their personal training.
Our personal training has grown drastically, says Larry Conner. Now can I say it’s solely due to the InBody? No, it is a combination of having great trainers and things you offer. But I believe the InBody has been an important part of that growth—and it’s helped us get to that next level in our personal training program.
Another program that saw a significant boost was the weight loss program. The program was already using InBody, but after they increased the frequency of InBody testing to every week, they saw a 50% increase in enrollment.
There were skeptics that did not believe in the accuracy of the results, but once they tested on the device, they became believers.
We had a local doctor that did not believe in it. She did tests that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. When we compared the InBody versus those results, it was very close to exactly the same results. She was immediately a fan of the InBody.
The positive response and impact they were seeing within the club were so tremendous that Conner knew he could use the device to make a positive impact in the surrounding community.
Sharing the Gift of Knowledge
From day one, Stone Creek focused on being an active participant in their community. Every year, Stone Creek raises between $300,000 to $500,000 in direct contributions to local and national charities. That doesn’t include giveaways for auctions and member donations to the community. Notable highlights include providing Christmas presents to 180 needy children, donating around 300 teddy bears to pediatric patients in local hospitals, and purchasing PE equipment for all 27 elementary schools in their parish. True to its spirit of giving, Stone Creek shared its InBody device with the community.
We realized that the InBody helps bring your whole community together—inside and outside the club. The InBody helps us reach out in a way that is beyond fundraising. We can answer the questions that people want to know about themselves in a quick snapshot. The portability of the device allows us to reach out to people, give them their results, and help change their lives.
Stone Creek brought its InBody to different organizations that could benefit from body composition analysis, from local high school wrestling teams and employees of local companies. The goal wasn’t to recruit new members. They saw a great opportunity to provide important health information that would help improve people’s lives.
Stone Creek’s mission is to help everyone, both inside and outside of the club, become the healthiest version of themselves. InBody is one of the indispensable tools to help advance Stone Creek’s mission.
I welcome all the health clubs in our area to get the InBody. I think it’s important that we all have this kind of tool for our members because they’re not going to be able to do this on their own. When they come to the health club, they can do one of these tests really quickly and learn that much more about their body. That’s one of the best gifts that you can give anybody.
